


while you hold my lonely hands, you'll know

by Crystallinee



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: AU, Adult Number Five | The Boy, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, Not Incest If You Understand TUA, References to Depression, fiveya - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26034616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystallinee/pseuds/Crystallinee
Summary: It's too late for them, but Five keeps coming around.She learned how to live without him, and now she must learn how to have him close.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 27
Kudos: 185





	while you hold my lonely hands, you'll know

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU, set after season 2 if the Sparrow Academy arc never happens.

He keeps coming over to her apartment. Vanya finds him in her tiny living room when she least expects it, leaning back in her worn-out chair, drinking her coffee.

Things have slowly gone back to normal; the world is safe again. Number Five is back in their lives. The numbness is gone, the world is clearer.

He has been working intensely with his equations for the better part of a year, and he has finally made progress. It stunned her, more than it should have, to come home one day and see him standing by her window with an adult body – looking like he's in his thirties. Clean shaven and still strongly resembling his teenage self, giving her that familiar, self-assured smile, eyes practically glowing with pride and contentment.

Yet, his mind won't change. In this body he's never felt less like her brother, but he's still her closest confidante. The only one, really. Who else should she talk to? Vanya has always kept to herself. She has started talking to some women in her orchestra and she's still tutoring children, but it's not the same as talking to someone who knows all about her.

Allison has fought for custody of Claire and spends as much time with her as she possibly can, trying to rebuild her life without using her powers. She's keeping herself busy enough to forget about Ray. Her sister didn't have to tell her that much; Vanya understood. She is not that close to her other siblings; she doesn't hear from Klaus or Diego too often.

Arriving home from grocery shopping or violin practice - where else does she have to be? - she often finds him sitting in her old couch that she found at a second-hand shop so long ago. He gazes into the distance as if he's contemplating, his bony hands around her coffee mug. She finds herself staring at his dark hair, always slicked back over his head. He wears a suit that fits him, it's elegant. He's popular with women; they stop and stare at him, admiring him even though his aura is unapproachable and downright rude at times. She is happy for him, she is. But she can't stand to watch.

It doesn't make any difference.

Sometimes she wishes he wouldn't keep coming.

When she unlocks the door this time, she's not surprised to see him. Vanya's head aches from a full day of practice, she wants to collapse onto her bed. Maybe she'll be tired enough to actually sleep tonight.

"Hi, Vanya," he greets her in that familiar way. Soft, appreciative.

"You'll have to buy me more coffee," she says, her voice hollow enough. "I'm running out."

"Fair enough."

She tries to avoid him as long as she can, but there are no more chores that need to be done. She ends up standing by the kitchen counter, her back turned against the couch. She knows he's looking at her, sipping his beverage quietly.

Sometimes he speaks casually of something, telling her what one of their siblings have been up to if he found it amusing enough to share. She's told him things, too. She has told him about Leonard, all of it, and she watched his face go cold, jaw clenched, knowing he wished he could have been the one who ended his life. He even held her once when she spoke about the years. The long, hazy time when he was gone and she was just a shadow.

She's spent countless hours just listening to him ramble about something as they share another pot of coffee, or sitting together with him in comfortable, lulling silence. He's even slept on her couch a couple of times after they shared a bottle of gin or whisky and he got drowsy.

Sometimes he listens to her playing the violin and her hands always gets a little bit shaky knowing he's watching her, her heart beating so fast she even considered taking beta-blockers; she still had them since she auditioned for first chair. He likes it, he's learning the names of her pieces.

"Primavera?" he said once when she was practicing Vivaldi's four seasons, leaning back with one leg crossed over his knee, an appreciative smile on his face.

They are both getting older, there is no way around it. Even if they seemingly are the same age, there's an overlap in his mind, a bridge she can never cross. She can never imagine the things he has seen, even if he sometimes shares a story after a few shots of whisky.

It keeps reminding her of what things could have been like. They could never be like Luther and Allison; instead, they ended up locked into their own realities, never together but never apart. Things are different now. They're not teens stealing glances and sharing bed after a nightmare anymore. She is an adult who's been through too much to sleep easy, and he is even older than that.

She can pretend that it's not too late, but she knows it when she sees his face, distant and focused on his memories, reliving them - or looking forward as if he could gaze into the future. Never here; only in the past or in what's to come. She never knows what he's thinking.

She needs to confront him tonight. She takes a deep breath, steadying herself as she turns to look at him.

"Why are you still here, Five?"

"I like your company. You're the only one who doesn't drive me insane to be around." His tone is light, casual, but she doesn't buy it. She keeps staring at him. He's staying at the mostly-abandoned Academy. There is no necessity for him to come here.

"We're not kids anymore," she says.

He looks up at her, a slight frown forming between his eyebrows, just a hint of sarcasm in his tone. "Fortunately not."

She shifts, readjusting her body to look less closed-off. It still tears at her chest every time he leaves and never knows if he will come back. Sometimes he leaves without telling her and she worries for days if something has happened – if the Commission has finally found a way to catch up to him, if there's another Apocalypse, if he has found someone - she stops her train of thought right there.

She knows about Delores. He told her, eventually, under the influence and not very willingly, and she's heard it from the others as well. Why he was together with a plastic mannequin for thirty years is not her greatest concern; he claims he has left that behind. But still, the thought is enough to be uncomfortable.

Every time he comes and every time he leaves, he tears up that hole inside of her. She had managed to patch it up and numb enough in his absence but it opens wide and bleeds all over her whenever he shows up. She hates it. She learned how to live without him, and now she has to relearn how to have him close.

"It's getting late," she tries again. She doesn't want to go to bed alone now, biting her knuckles bloody.

He puts the cup down on the end table and gracefully gets up, moving seamlessly as always.

"Am I bothering you, Vanya?" His voice is soft but direct, like always when he speaks to her. He speaks to make a point, like always, but also because he expects and answer. There is prying curiosity in his eyes, watching her with the attentive sharpness of an assassin, but around her he always lets his guard down.

"No, it's just that – " She searches for the right words, feeling self-conscious when he's so close. "Don't you have more important things to do?" She hates herself for never finding the right words.

Something shifts slightly in his expression. "I like spending time with my favorite sister." She doesn't like that word, it feels unfit for the two of them.

Why would he possibly want to do that? She's the reason he has been stuck in a wasteland for decades and suffered for half a century.

"You're planning something, are you?" She has heard his obsessive mumbles, seen him scribble in a notebook when he's here. Always calculating. It strikes a chord of something in her, maybe it's desperation, a hint of anger, but she carefully pushes it back before it can take any physical form.

"I worry," she continues, taking a deep breath. "You're here for a while and then you just disappear."

"There are still things I have to do, Vanya."

"Like what?" she snaps, unable to hold her composure. "Is it me? Am I causing the Apocalypse again? Is that why you keep coming here, to make sure _I don't blow things up_?" This time she can't keep it in, the sound of her voice makes the dishes on the counter vibrate. He notices, and reaches out, making his voice softer.

"No, that's not it. You haven't done anything, yet."

" _What_ am I doing this time? It's always my fault, isn't it?" The sleepless nights and long day has finally gotten to her. She's sick of seeing him here, coming and going like she's the only person in the world he would want to spend time with, only to leave, and leave and leave again.

If he had let her stay in Dallas, she'd have someone. Not enough, but someone who at least touched her.

Her voice is surprisingly firm. "I don't want you to come here anymore." She turns away quickly, willing herself to keep her power in before she wrecks the house. It sits in her chest like a tightly coiled spring and her eyes are stinging. He is addicted to his calculations, the end of the world, the Commission, and it will always be like that. His presence will never let her forget.

Hasn't he noticed how close she is to losing her grip?

"Vanya." He's trying to calm her down, seeing her shoulders tense up. It's too late, everything is too late. Her life is as dull and empty as it could ever be.

"Listen to me!" he presses, jaw setting firmly. "I am not here to monitor you like some bomb!"

She walks into her bedroom and slams the door shut behind her.

He appears in front of her with a crackle and a flash of blue. He's so close their chests are almost touching, towering above her in his full length. She has to tilt her head slightly upwards just to meet his smoldering gaze.

"Go away, Five." Vanya says it with all the finality she can muster, daring him to anger her.

"I will, when you tell me what's going on." She's caught between him and the wall and the only way to physically overpower him would be to let that idle energy in her chest explode, and she has gotten so much better at controlling it. She won't use it, not against him, not like this.

"Vanya," he snaps, impatience breaking through his tone. She can't focus her thoughts when he's that close and that metaphorical hole in her chest that's been ripped up is just gushing. She tries to think of him as her brother again, the only one she could turn to. It helps her to find her voice again.

"I hate it when you're leaving me behind! You're always leaving me behind!"

"I can stay," he offers but she knows it's just temporary, him sleeping on the couch, always gone by the time she wakes. It's not the same. She doesn't offer him that anymore.

But he's here now, she has his full attention and she laps it up as if she's starving for it. His expression hardens. Has he noticed the various assortments of sleeping pills in her medical cabinets, the bloody gauzes in the trash can?

She leans closer and wraps her arms around him, hard, clinging to him with all the desperation that gnaws at her bones, because this will just be another night riddled with anxiety. He will hold her for a while, as a brother would, and then he will leave again. She will have to paint her smile on in the morning until her lips break.

He returns the gesture, in a way that drives her even madder. His hand moves to grasp her wrist, brushing his thumb against the faded marks there, and he doesn't look away. Her desperation grows, she clings to him harder. With his arms wrapped around her smaller form, surrounding her with that body heat, she closes her eyes and gasps quietly into his collar.

"Stay," she chokes out. Surely he can see the exhaustion that has followed her all these months, the hollow of her cheeks, how she's fading away.

He moves his arms and suddenly lifts her up, carrying her with ease. He drops her gently on her bed, that's still too big and empty. She clings onto him with all her might, locking her arms around his neck for just a moment before releasing him, realizing her mistake. She can't keep doing this.

"I'm sorry," she breathes, scooting away from him.

He sits down on the side of her bed, watching her, looking older and wearier than she's ever seen before.

She curls up on her side among the messed up sheets, holding herself together.

It takes a few moments before she feels him lay down behind her, a familiar gesture. She turns her head, still in a haze, and sees him still watching her. She places her head on his arm like she did when they were children, listening to his breathing. It still hurts.

After a while, she hesitantly reaches out. Touching his face, she lets her fingers brush across the contour of it, the bridge of his nose, following it to his smooth hair. He would never let anyone else come that close. His eyes close and he lets out a silent sigh.

Slowly turning her tired body, she moves closer, burying her face in the nape of his neck. His smell has become familiar to her; coffee and Bourbon and the faintest hint of cologne. Soap, unscented and fresh, reaches her nose. It reminds her of weary days long ago. She had scraped her knee when she was seven and Grace had rubbed it with that same kind of soap until her skin was raw and bleeding. With her red, uncanny smile, she had told Vanya that it was for the best. _It won't_ _heal properly without getting the dirt out first._

His hand is in her hair, slowly stroking it. She curls her smaller form into his. It still comes naturally.

She knows that it's too late for them.

She tilts her face upward, watching him for a moment, and presses a kiss to the side of his face.

"Vanya," she doesn't even need to look to know that he is wide-eyed. "What are you doing?"

"Why do you really keep coming here?"

"I missed you." It's as honest a confession she will ever get out of him, and even though her mind should be reeling at the revelation, it's not enough.

She stares up at the ceiling for a moment, then back at him, his body so comfortably close to hers, and she knows the hole in her chest will keep bleeding all the night through and she should really push him away now before she gets too used to it. Like stepping into ice-cold water, she doesn't want to be too warm before.

"I missed you too," she chokes out at last. "I always missed you."

She can't really think straight when he cups her face between his hands, and looks at her way too long, and then his lips brushes hers and she's disappearing into the scent of him, wiping her tears on his pristine collar. She clings to him until she's too tired to keep her eyes open and his hand is still in her hair.

She wakes up when morning light filters through the dark in her room, and she sees Five's sleeping face, close to hers, his arms still tightly around her. He's slipped out of his coat and she's managed to peel her jeans off herself just to sleep more comfortably.

She moves to press her face against his skin again, and lets the smell of coffee and soap linger in her mind, his soft breaths.

She'll sew herself right up again.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are loved, let me know what you think!


End file.
